If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Why is it that I always seem to have to write these pieces just before some binary event or other, usually of Eurozone origin, meaning that by Tuesday (in this case), I could look extremely foolish?! Oh well here goes: my feeling is that the Cypriot crisis will fade from memory over the next few weeks and won't lead to wider Eurozone contagion. There - I've said it.
As well as targeting specific funds to get stalled schemes in our most buoyant cities moving, we need to see more autonomy for cities to drive investment in new housing. By removing the restrictions on councils' ability to borrow money against their existing housing assets to invest in new housing, industry experts suggest councils could borrow an additional £2.8bn to invest in new housing.
The bedroom tax, due to come into force up all over the country on 1 April, must be turned into this Tory-led coalition government's poll tax.
The politicization of banking reforms makes a mockery of the problem at hand. Regulators at all levels should have unchecked power to impose reforms as they see fit. When it comes to regulation, the Basel committee should not be making concessions to the private sector whatsoever.
While low pay and in-work poverty have risen up the economic agenda in recent years, our policy debate has been stuck in a loop. Ask most Labour politicians about low pay and you can expect a well-intentioned but passive mixture of pride in the minimum wage and warm words on the living wage before the topic is changed to the importance of protecting support like working tax credits.
Cultural diversity has played a key role in forming the multicultural Britain of today, far more so than adherence to one set of 'national values' has. The role of the state is to enforce this tolerance through laws and expose children to the true diversity of the world they are entering in the education system.
Small businesses are the engine room of the UK economy and whilst I applaud Chancellor Osborne's intent to help them more must be done in the long-term if small businesses are to truly drive economic growth and job creation.
From the moment I open my eyes and wipe away the sleep I know what's in store. A lot of emailing, a lot of research, a lot of looking through job search engines and a lot of procrastination. I'm mentally preparing myself; it's me against the stats.
Why on Earth, a visitor from another planet might ask us, has an incompetent dilettante been made Second Lord of the Treasury? We'd have to admit it's because his equally inept chum from uni has been made First Lord of the Treasury. How silly would that make us look?
There were positive announcements in the Budget. It is clear, with his announcements on shared equity, that the government is trying to stimulate both ends of the property chain and that is to be welcomed.
If this isn't a depression, what would one look like? The economic recovery following the crisis of 2007/08 has been the slowest for a century, slower even than from the Great Depression. Only the post-WWI recession of 1920-1924 saw a steeper decline in output, and even then there was a return to growth by month fifty of recession.
All in all, the problems are mounting. The economic plan has not delivered what was promised, people are feeling the pain, but without the promised benefits being delivered.
Nothing the government said in the Budget will aid the housing market. A toothless bunch, the market has recovered through hard work and honest advice from estate agents, not the policies or schemes that the government has introduced in recent years.
Quite what happens in Cyprus from now on is unpredictable. But the Cyprus crisis has reminded perhaps complacent thinking, certainly in financial markets of wider Euro Area implications.
Amidst this week's economic gloom were two bright spots of the jobs market. First, new stats from the ONS led to widespread reports that employment had again reached record levels, with the number of people in work rising 131,000 in the quarter to 29.7 million. Then the OBR upgraded its forecasts for employment over the next few years.
